Michael Daly's List: HRAF exercise: Race and Ethnicity

Slave society was stratified into three castes: a small number of Whites, a smaller number of "free people of color" (generally mulattoes), and a huge Black slave population. White-minority rule led to the development of a "white bias": European phenotypic and cultural traits were more highly valued than their African or Creole counterparts. With Emancipation, the castes were transformed into classes, but the White bias persisted, resulting in a "color-class pyramid": a White upper class, a "Brown" middle class, and a Black lower-class majority. The addition of Chinese, East Indian, and Lebanese immigrants, who did not have a clear place in the color-class pyramid, made stratification more complex. Color and ethnicity still influence social interactions, but the White bias and the color-class pyramid have become less evident since the mid-twentieth century. Nevertheless, Jamaica is still highly stratified by wealth; it has a very small, prosperous upper class, a small middle class, and a huge, impoverished lower class. In the mid-1960s Jamaica had the highest rate of income inequality in the world.

The article description on how Jamaica, class system is revolved around race. White being the upperclass controlling Jamacia social stases and sets the standard of social stratification.

The family was the basic social unit through which wealth and status were transmitted in Roman society. The perpetuation of the aristocracy, the possibilities for social mobility, the distribution of landed wealth, and other matters depended fundamentally on patterns of family behavior (Garnsey, 1987: 126). The Latin terms familia and domus for family and household did not have the same semantic range of emphasis in Roman times as they are used today (2006) in referring to a father, mother, and their children. The Romans used familia to refer to all individuals under the father's power ( patria potestas), including the wife, children, the sons' children, and adopted children, all agnates (those related through the male line who derive from the same house - a lineage, but excluding a daughter's children or a mother's blood kin, all related through males to a common ancestor who shared a common name (i. e., the clan or gens, and the slave staff. The term domus in the sense of household was more frequently used in reference to the family, and generally covered a larger group than is associated with the family today (2006), encompassing husband and wife, children, slaves, and others living in the house including relatives linked through women.

The Romains use of familia, helped create the word family. Family units people as they live together, defend each other and love each other. Different ethnic groups can also become a family, combining different ethnic groups.

Slave society was stratified into three castes: a small number of Whites, a smaller number of "free people of color" (generally mulattoes), and a huge Black slave population. White-minority rule led to the development of a "white bias": European phenotypic and cultural traits were more highly valued than their African or Creole counterparts. With Emancipation, the castes were transformed into classes, but the White bias persisted, resulting in a "color-class pyramid": a White upper class, a "Brown" middle class, and a Black lower-class majority. The addition of Chinese, East Indian, and Lebanese immigrants, who did not have a clear place in the color-class pyramid, made stratification more complex. Color and ethnicity still influence social interactions, but the White bias and the color-class pyramid have become less evident since the mid-twentieth century. Nevertheless, Jamaica is still highly stratified by wealth; it has a very small, prosperous upper class, a small middle class, and a huge, impoverished lower class. In the mid-1960s Jamaica had the highest rate of income inequality in the world.


Ethnic relations is the area of the discipline that studies the social, political, and economic relations, which Jamaica clearly has issues have the different social classes, a small number of Whites, a smaller number of "free people of color", and a huge Black slave population. White-minority rule led to the development of a "white bias": European phenotypic and cultural traits were more highly valued than their African or Creole counterparts.

In a recent definitive statement of Oirat identity, Oirat ethnogenesis is linked to original Mongols (yazguuriin Mongol) (Ochir 1993). The author redefined the term Nirun, suggesting that it means 'back' of a body (nuruun). He related it to the legend in the Secret History that, after the death of her husband, Alan Goa, the legendary ancestress of the Mongols, gave birth to three sons from her back (nuruun), claiming that she had been touched by a heavenly light. Ochir used the term butach (illegitimate children) to refer to the three sons who became the ancestry of the Chinggisid golden lineage (altan urag). Most interestingly, he pointed out that the supposed 'heavenly light' that impregnated Alan Goa was in fact a servant called Malig Bayat, who was the ancestor of the Bayat subgroup of the Oirats. It is thus established that it was an Oirat who fathered the illegitimate children of Alan Goa, who in turn became the ancestors of the Mongol aristocrats!

He related it to the legend in the Secret History that, after the death of her husband, Alan Goa, the legendary ancestress of the Mongols, gave birth to three sons from her back (nuruun), claiming that she had been touched by a heavenly light.

Slave society was stratified into three castes: a small number of Whites, a smaller number of “free people of color” (generally mulattoes), and a huge Black slave population. White-minority rule led to the development of a “white bias”: European phenotypic and cultural traits were more highly valued than their African or Creole counterparts. With Emancipation, the castes were transformed into classes, but the White bias persisted, resulting in a “color-class pyramid”: a White upper class, a “Brown” middle class, and a Black lower-class majority. The addition of Chinese, East Indian, and Lebanese immigrants, who did not have a clear place in the color-class pyramid, made stratification more complex. Color and ethnicity still influence social interactions, but the White bias and the color-class pyramid have become less evident since the mid-twentieth century. Nevertheless, Jamaica is still highly stratified by wealth; it has a very small, prosperous upper class, a small middle class, and a huge, impoverished lower class. In the mid-1960s Jamaica had the highest rate of income inequality in the world.

A distinction must be made between, on the one hand, those activities of the general civil life which involve earning a living, carrying out political responsibilities, and engaging in the instrumental affairs of the large community, and, on the other hand, activities which create personal friendship patterns, frequent home intervisiting, communal worship and communal recreation. The first type usually develops so-called "secondary relationships" [Page 128] which tend to be relatively impersonal and segmental; the latter type leads to "primary relationships," which are warm, intimate and personal.
Gordon's distinction of "primary" versus "secondary relationships" is useful in viewing the Saraguro data, but as Barth (1969: 16-17) has indicated, "plural society is a vague label" … with a variety of possible sectors of articulation and separation, and hence a variety of polyethnic systems are entailed. Like the American pattern, political and economic interactions occur in the secondary plane in Saraguro; however, "communal worship" is also a secondary relationship when conducted across ethnic boundaries.


A distinction must be made between, on the one hand, those activities of the general civil life which involve earning a living, carrying out political responsibilities, and engaging in the instrumental affairs of the large community, and, on the other hand, activities which create personal friendship patterns, frequent home intervisiting, communal worship and communal recreation.

The colonial structure affects both the colonized and the colonizer. Implicit (and sometimes explicit) in the colonial relationship is the psychological fallout of the relationship. Articulated most eloquently by Fanon (1968) and Memmi (1965), and in fictionalized form by Achebe (1959), these psychological outgrowths involve myriad relations between the colonized and the colonizer. To note just a few: the colonizer's view of the colonized as “subjects”; colonial ambivalence about the colonial history; and historically evolved defenses against encroachments on one's culture; sense of dignity, and way of life. Finally, just as colonial settings produce “colonial mentalities” (i.e., the mentalities of those who acquiesce to the dominant power) (Fanon, 1968), they are also inherent breeders of “oppositional mentalities”